luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 31, 2026 · SO

No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

Lightning at Predators, Oct 31, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Predators beat the Lightning 5–4, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Predators win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Predators.

The biggest swing (SO): the Predators won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Predators.

Final (SO)

Tampa Bay Lightning 4
Nashville Predators 5

October 31, 2026 · Bridgestone Arena

Our prediction before puck drop: Lightning by 0.3

Luck index +44 Predators lucky · −44 Lightning

Each team’s own shots from this game, resampled into new games 4,000 times, each a goal at its chance, with the power plays the penalties gave and the pulled goalie at the end: with the way both teams actually played, how often does this performance win? How the replay works

Ten replays. Lightning win 4, Predators win 6.

  1. 1 TBL 4 NSH 1
  2. 2 TBL 4 NSH 2
  3. 3 TBL 3 NSH 2
  4. 4 TBL 6 NSH 5
  5. 5 TBL 1 NSH 2
  6. 6 TBL 1 NSH 2
  7. 7 TBL 3 NSH 4
  8. 8 TBL 2 NSH 4
  9. 9 TBL 2 NSH 5
  10. 10 TBL 0 NSH 4

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Lightning by 0.3, 55% to win. The Predators won by 1, a result we gave 45%. The final margin was 1.3 goals from ours; 59% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Lightning win54.6%
Predators win45.4%
Middle 50%: Lightning by 2 to Predators by 250%
Middle 90%: Lightning by 4 to Predators by 490%
Middle 95%: Lightning by 5 to Predators by 495%
Exactly Lightning by 121.1%
Exactly Predators by 119.9%
Exactly Lightning by 313.0%
Exactly Lightning by 211.0%
Exactly Predators by 310.3%

Most of the distance between a forecast and a final score is luck: a hot goalie, a post or a deflection moves a hockey score more than anything known before the game. Made Sat, Oct 31, 11:57 am ET and frozen at puck drop. How our predictions have done

Three other ways to ask

Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.

No closing line for this game.

Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.

Every shot redrawn at its chance, overtime and the shootout replayed as near coin flips; the shots themselves and every call fixed. The narrowest view of luck.

How 4,000 replays ended

Lightning win 44% of them, Predators 56%. The line is what actually happened: Predators by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+14.5%
Lightning by 29.9%
Lightning by 119.3%
Predators by 122.7%
Predators by 211.2%
Predators by 3+22.5%

Where the luck was

What the luck was worth

Every lucky and unlucky play, weighted by the moment it happened: its swing in win probability, added up by kind. A post hit in a blowout counts for nothing; the same post with a minute left in a tie game can be most of a win.

Swings add up across a game, so in one that went back and forth they can pass 100%. On the scoreboard the same luck was worth +0.8 goals to the Predators: the final margin was Predators by 1, without the luck Predators by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning4142.53+1.47
Predators4442.80+1.20

Regulation with both goalies in. Expected goals: our model of each shot’s chance from where and how it was taken (distance, angle, shot type, rebound, rush, strength), adjusted for the shooter’s and the goalie’s records. A team above expected finished better or met a weaker night in goal; 75% of the gap counts as luck (why that share).

Calls

Every penalty that put a team on the power play, and every goal taken off the board on review, with what it did to the helped team’s chance of winning at that moment. Calls don’t count toward luck by default: who draws penalties repeats from game to game like a skill (how calls are valued). Switch them on below.

WhenCallWin probability for
P1 13:37 Tripping on the Lightning (J.J. Moser): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P2 6:59 Hooking on the Predators (Jack Drury): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL
P3 18:54 Tripping on the Predators (Ryan O'Reilly): 2 minutes on the power play +6% TBL
P3 12:55 Hooking on the Lightning (Scott Sabourin): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NSH
P3 8:55 Hooking on the Lightning (Ilya Mikheyev): 2 minutes on the power play +8% NSH
P3 2:57 Delaying game puck over glass on the Predators (Adam Wilsby): 2 minutes on the power play +10% TBL

When it happened

Predators’ chance of winning

As low as 22% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.

Our in-game win probability: the score and the time left, starting from the betting line (or the home edge alone when there is none), with goals at the league’s rates for the score. Overtime is drawn at a fixed width. Shaded above the middle while the Predators were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 6:22 John Carlson scored on a wrist shot from 56 feetShooting · 1% chance +17% TBL –
2 P2 19:42 Jake Guentzel scored on a tip from 18 feetShooting · 8% chance +18% TBL –
3 P2 19:15 Adam Edstrom scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 12% chance +17% NSH –
4 P2 16:37 Victor Hedman scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 10% chance +18% TBL –
5 P2 0:18 Jayden Struble scored on a wrist shot from 22 feetShooting · 5% chance +24% NSH –
6 P3 16:29 Conor Geekie scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 13% chance +24% TBL –
7 P3 12:33 Steven Stamkos scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 13% chance +27% NSH –
8 SO The Predators won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% NSH –

Adjust the assumptions

Think finishing is more skill than we do, or that the calls were luck? Change it and the coin-flip replay reruns in your browser.

Only coin-flips re-rolled

Lightning 45% · Predators 55%

Final margin
Predators by 1
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Predators
Luck-adjusted margin
Predators by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 44% · Predators 56% unchanged: why
How much of each is luck?

0% treats it as skill, 100% as pure luck. The tick is our fit.

What counts
Flip a play

Force the other outcome, in this game and in every replay: a goal becomes a save, a post goes in, a penalty goes the other way.

About these numbers

Play-by-play from the NHL via fastRhockey; expected goals, in-game win probability and the replays are our own models, fitted on every game since 2018-19 (methodology and validation). Blocked shots aren’t replayed (their location is the block’s, not the shot’s). No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

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